


Knife

by Benny_IsA_Dog



Series: Faults [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Black Paladin Keith (Voltron), Canon Compliant, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Extended Metaphors, Gen, Heavy Angst, Keith (Voltron) Angst, Metaphors, Missing Scene, Self Confidence Issues, Sentient Voltron Lions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-08 00:29:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14682675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Benny_IsA_Dog/pseuds/Benny_IsA_Dog
Summary: Keith felt Black try to calm him even as he jumped to his feet and grabbed for the knife. He stumbled to the door, slamming his hand impatiently on the activation panel.The lights blinked on in front of him and shuttered off in his wake, the teal casting strange, multi-colored shadows on the passing walls. Black prodded him in different directions-- down this hall, a right turn here, down these stairs--and Keith followed. Each step made her a little louder in his head and the panic slightly quieter. He let her buffet him wherever she wanted--he didn't have any better ideas.He stopped when he reached her hanger.__________________Keith never wanted to be the Black Paladin. Now, Shiro is back, and Keith has a conversation with the Black Lion.





	Knife

**Author's Note:**

> Set between Seasons 3 and 4.

These days, if Keith had a nightmare, it usually would feature the other Paladins.

 

His deep subconscious would pick one of his team and piece together an astounding combination of blood, blasters, Druid magic, the vacuum of space--or whatever else he could literally dream up--and then combine them in a tumultuous, boiling pot of horror. Keith wouldn't have guessed he could be so imaginative.

 

But the screaming was a constant. There was always someone screaming. So maybe his imagination had its limits.

 

Sometimes, there would be nothing he could do. Whoever was featured would be just out of his reach, or he'd be watching the scene like the sole member of an unwilling audience. He'd watch his teammates go through innumerable variations of hell, and there would be nothing he could do.

 

Those were usually the better nightmares.

 

Other times, he'd be able to act, to touch, to speak--but everything he tried made the screaming worse. Every decision backfired in his face.

 

Usually, his mind picked a single character and then ran with it for the rest of the night--in a sort of disturbing, one-Paladin show.

 

Tonight's performance starred the whole ensemble.

 

Keith tried to grab on to Pidge, but that just ripped the wound on her arm further open. He switched strategies and stepped away from Hunk, but that left him exposed to enemy fire--

 

(Something poked him.)

 

He told Allura to fly wide, but he watched as the Blue Lion was hit with a blast from an indeterminate origin and fell to pieces--

 

(It poked harder.)

 

Keith yelled something, because everything he said was _important--_ but Lance's screaming just got louder because everything Keith said was important but it was also all _wrong--_

 

(It told him it wasn't real.)

 

The scene shifted, in that way that only makes sense in dreams, to Voltron standing in all its glory. Keith tried to hold still, keep his mouth shut, do _absolutely nothing_ \-- but that was the wrong answer, too. Voltron evaporated, melted, and crumbled all at once like it couldn't make up its mind--

 

(It _pushed.)_

 

Planets disappeared in the same confused mess. Then entire planet systems and their stars. Then one galaxy, then another, then another, like a convoluted line of dominos--

 

(It broke through.)

 

The dream collapsed as something black slammed in to replace it. There was _only_ black. There were no more images, no more screams... but that just made more room for the terror.  

 

Keith sucked in a breath.

 

_He'd messed up._

 

He jerked his elbow into his bed. Something familiar was trying to tell him something, but he couldn't understand what it was saying--adrenaline-fueled fear pushed up and filled him like a roaring wave of static.

 

_He'd messed up he'd messed up he'd messed up._

 

His efforts to sit up and shoot off the bed translated into an odd thrashing motion.

 

_He needed to move._

 

His foot snagged suddenly in the bedsheet while his top half continued determinedly forward--

 

_He needed to fix this._

 

\--and his forehead smacked into the floor about two inches before his hands did.

 

Fucking _shit._ The pain bouncing around his skull--combined with the startling element of surprise-- was enough to cut through the _bad bad bad_ for a handful of seconds. It gave Keith just enough presence of mind to choke back his yelp of pain before it became something closer to the scream of fear (and failure) still trying to claw its way out.

 

In the back of his mind, Black whispered to him-- _not real, it wasn't real_ . She pushed against him hard enough that the static paused in a hiccup. Keith latched onto her like he were drowning. He let her pull him out of the pounding waves that smashed against his body and yelled at him to _panic_.

 

He took a deep breath. And another.

 

He was looking at the floor. His hands were braced against it, supporting half of his weight, while his leg-half stretched awkwardly up to sit on the bed. Grasping at the smooth surface, Keith slithered the rest of the way down to stand on all fours.

 

His knife lay next to his hand, the Marmora symbol glowing in the gloom of the bedroom. Amazingly, he'd managed to grab it in his flailing and-- even more amazingly--had managed not to stab himself in the face on the tumble down.

 

That strange glow used to always be comforting. A small sense of hope would reflexively appear anytime he looked at it--like drool from a dog at the sound of a bell. It used to mean that, wherever he was, it wasn't quite _right_ \--that there was somewhere else, maybe, where he could-- _should_ \-- be. That, wherever he was, he didn't actually belong there…

 

...That sentiment wasn't very comforting, now.

 

The static started again--a growing buzz in his ears.

 

Keith felt Black try to calm him even as he jumped to his feet and grabbed for the knife. He stumbled to the door, slamming his hand impatiently on the activation panel.

 

In the hall, he forced himself not to sprint (or scream). He really didn't need half the team to wake up and come bursting out with their weapons drawn. Instead, he tried for a softer jog through the residential wing-- he didn't get far, though, before the overwhelming fear of something he couldn't quite place drove him into a frantic run from something he couldn't quite identify.

 

The lights blinked on in front of him and shuttered off in his wake, the teal casting strange, multi-colored shadows on the passing walls. Black prodded him in different directions-- down this hall, a right turn here, down these stairs--and Keith followed. Each step made her a little louder in his head, and the static slightly quieter. He let her buffet him wherever she wanted--he didn't have any better ideas.

 

He stopped when he reached her hanger.

 

Keith caught himself on the frame of the door that led in. He grasped onto it, breathing heavily. It was hard to keep his body _still_.

 

Black was in her usual pose of attention, sitting back on her haunches with her head held up proudly far, far above him. More than twice the size of the Red Lion, her shoulders reached the height of a respectable high-rise.  Her wing extensions reached even further. Her chest--the chest of Voltron-- stretched in a massive, black expanse over his head.

 

She made Keith feel so, so small.

 

The worst of the adrenaline was gone, now, leaving him with an uncomfortable exhaustion that dragged on every piece of him. He sagged to his knees. His knife slipped from his grip and clattered to the floor, making an awful metallic _clang_.

 

The sound rang against the walls as it traveled up the inner surface of the Castle spire.

 

Black stirred, her gears and hydraulics sighing loud over the echoes. She lowered her huge head to rest on the floor, in front of Keith, and opened her mouth. Her mind drifted out and caressed him. Wrapped around him.

 

 _He belonged_ here, she told him, _with her_.

 

Keith's next inhale rasped rough against his throat. He really wanted to believe that.

 

Keith's arms shook as he pressed himself off the floor, and he felt stupidly like a baby deer figuring out how to use its legs for the first time. Black pushed harder around him, into him, and the shaking stopped.  Slowly, he stood up. She lifted--solid stone to steady against. Then, a few steps forward. She pulled--gravity shifting to pull to her as its center.

 

They left the knife where it had dropped.

 

The rest of the path to her ramp was easier. Natural. The ascent up was intuitive--an attraction from complementary _need need need_. He entered the cockpit, and their minds joined into a whole, as if there had never been a divide to begin with.

 

Keith sank in the pilot's chair. _It was safe here_ , Black told him.

 

He curled his legs into himself, turning to fit them in the chair and to press his side and forehead into the backrest. He followed a deep, childlike instinct to make himself small--to stay hidden--and to hold his body in one piece as the hot, expansive fear tried to scratch out from his lungs, his gut, his spine.

 

_She would hide him from everything.  Behind her mind. Behind her energy._

 

He folded his arms around his knees, fitting himself into her as much as he could.

 

_She would protect him-- with her walls, her will, her power._

 

His eyes had become wet.

 

_It was safe to cry here._

 

The first sobs wracked painfully from his chest, interrupting his rapid breathing and making the next gasp all the more desperate. Black’s energy pressed against his from all around. The black had a flavor of a warm, dry breeze. Her texture felt like the familiar view of stars over the desert.

 

The sobs kept hurting. And, quickly, the tears hurt, too-- pressurized burning that lined his sinuses and built behind his eyes.

 

Black caressed against him for long minutes. Slowly, the vague hysteria that woke him coalesced into a cold and heavy weight. A weight with a less defined cause--but that still couldn’t be escaped from.

 

Black examined the weight. _There was something else there._

 

Keith tried to pull it from her scrutiny-- to pack it away where he didn't have to feel the fear anymore. But she grabbed it back -- turning it and probing it. She brushed aside the fear and poked at what she found underneath...

 

_Doubt. So much doubt._

 

“I can’t be your Paladin, Black,” Keith whispered.  

 

She wrapped him, soothing.

 

“I shouldn’t be.”

 

_No. He was her Paladin._

 

Something in the weight rippled.

 

Keith moved his face to look up at the console. _“No_ \--I'm not a leader. I’m not _their_ leader.”

 

_He was. He was her Paladin. This was where he belonged._

 

Another undulation-- stronger this time.

 

Keith’s molars ground against one another, and he gripped at the fabric of his pants. Carefully, he peeled out small pieces of an idea he’d placed at the edges of his thoughts. He held each of them out to her, like an offering.

 

…He could go away (one Paladin too many)...

 

...Shiro wouldn’t push for his place (where he should have been all along), but Keith could, maybe, _make_ him…

 

...he’d remove the confusion (remove _himself_ )....

 

…he could leave (be more useful)...

 

...and then Shiro (and her, and everyone) would understand that Shiro should be the Black Paladin again.

 

Black’s mind hardened to concentrate inwards, towards him. It abutted forcefully against his, as if she was afraid he would disappear from beneath her, lacing further and further in.

 

And the weight _shuddered._

 

Black paused, orienting to the cold mass. Keith tried to stop its quivering, but she reached out and latched onto it-- _There was more, wasn’t there?--_ and she dug in before Keith could stop her.

 

(Before he could stop her from seeing.)

 

_Further down...beneath the fear and doubt. He was..._

 

_...Waiting?_

 

_He was waiting._

 

_He’d always been waiting. Waiting for everything to change._

 

 _Because nothing ever stayed the same--it_ never _did. Everything always changed. Change was the only thing that could be depended on. Even during that last year in the desert, when all logic indicated he was well on the path to becoming an eccentric hermit for the rest of his life, something deep and cryptic in him had known better-- had known that he was just_ waiting. _Waiting for Shiro to come back from the dead. Waiting for the strange energy that rang from the desert and bounced around in his head to get its shit together and start making some_ sense.

 

 _...And then, he’d been waiting again. For everything good he’d found to fall apart--because it did, it_ always _did-- and, when it_ did _, he’d waited for Shiro to come back from the dead, again._..

 

(Keith wanted her to stop-- he didn’t want to think about this.)

 

 _...And now, he was waiting for a different Lion to figure itself out. To figure out he wasn’t good enough-- because he wasn’t, he_ never _was--_

 

(He didn’t want to _feel_ this.)

 

 _\--and waiting for himself to fuck up too badly--because he would, he_ knew _he would-- and his team couldn’t afford that, the_ universe _couldn't afford that--and they wouldn’t forgive him, he'd lose them--_

 

(Stop.)

 

\-- _and everything would fall apart_ again _and he was just_ waiting _for it to happen, for everything to go wrong, and the waiting_ hurt _\--_

 

(It _hurt_.)

 

_\--it ripped at him with hard, sharp edges--_

 

(God, _it hurt.)_

 

 _\--cutting him open like a_ knife _\--_

 

Keith pushed at her-- tried to push her back out. His efforts were like throwing a bucket of water into the ocean and expecting to see the tide rise... but she complied.

 

She pulled away, now encompassing without pressure.

 

(...But that just made more room for the terror.)

 

There was a small sound… a quiet buzzing in his head. Like static.

 

He twisted out of the seat and jumped to standing. His feet slammed hard on the floor in the otherwise quiet cockpit...And the sound--the fear, anger--got _louder._

 

Black reached out, to comfort and protect. _Nothing needed to change--he didn't need to go anywhere._

 

“ _Yes I do!”_ snapped Keith, clenching his fists and glaring into her empty screens, “Shiro would be better for _everyone_ \-- I just need to get out of the way!”

 

_Keith was her Paladin, now._

 

“Yeah, sure, like _that_ ever stopped you from doing whatever the hell you wanted!” He brought out memories and flashed them at her-- of her ejecting Shiro into space in the middle of their first fight with Zarkon, of her letting Zarkon track them over and over and _over_ all across the universe and nearly getting them all killed _every_ time. She could still use her bond with Shiro-- she just _wouldn’t_.

 

The black energy around him quivered with  something uninterpretable-- and a scent of rage.

 

Keith stormed to the back of the cockpit. “Let me down,” he demanded.

 

Her anger pressed on him from all sides, heavier and heavier. He heard her seriously consider simply not letting him out.

 

_That would put a stop to this running away nonsense._

 

Fine, he could sit here in a war of wills with her. Totally okay with him. But unless she wanted him to die _right here_ in her cockpit from fucking _dehydration_ , she would have to let him out _eventually_ \-- so it might as damn well be right _now._

 

Her anger spiked to be suffocating, then dropped to seethe.

 

There was a pause. A stand-off between him, braced at the top of her mouth, and her, the powerful Head of Voltron that held him.

 

Finally, metal whirred, and her head began to lower.

 

As they descended, her mind smoothed to a thicker, softer texture. The walls around Keith bumped slightly as they reached the ground. She showed him a series of images of each of his teammates’ faces, all looking sad. She ended with one of himself.

 

 _It will hurt_ , she told him.

 

 _Yep,_ spat Keith.

 

(It hurt every time.)

 

Her mouth opened.

 

 _She loved him_ , she willed to him, _and so did their team._

 

 _Well, they probably wouldn't after he “ran away ,”_ Keith snarled. He felt the wave of denial she sent him, but he pushed it away.

 

(He didn't believe her.)

 

He stepped off the ramp and went towards the door.

 

He stopped only to pick up his knife.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I love comments and kudos. So please leave some.


End file.
